Rapid Response Fund
What is the Rapid Response Fund and what is its goal?
Pulsante’s Rapid Response Fund (RRF) provides organizations and social movements with the financial and technical support to leverage windows of opportunity to trigger public discussions and civic engagement.
Priorities of the Rapid Response Fund
We seek to diversify and expand campaigns to promote collective actions that will expand civic space, promote the development of practices that reduce gaps between governments and civil society in Latin America, and safeguard space for participation and collective organization.
Under this framework, the following initiatives will be supported:
• Advocacy and citizen mobilization campaigns that seek to expand civic space and represent the voices of excluded and underrepresented sectors, such as domestic workers, delivery workers, groups in rural communities, indigenous peoples, etc.
• Campaigns, actions and documentations that treat evidence of human rights abuses and discuss them in the public agenda
• Citizen actions that seek to place relevant issues on the agenda and encourage open and democratic discussion
• Citizen mobilization calling for change and regulation against human rights abuses
• Response to the introduction of legislation that diminishes or reduces the political rights of the population, promotes censorship and/or has other effects on human rights and civic space
Characteristics of the Rapid Response Fund
- Resources from US$10,000 to US$15,000 may be requested.
- Technical support may be requested on topics such as campaigns, communication, advocacy and others.
- The support will last between 3 and 6 months.
Who can apply?
- Coalitions or groups of organizations
- Collectives of organized civil society
Criteria for selection
- Campaigns should be designed under the premises of promoting human rights and citizen participation online and offline.
- Work plans must be relevant, exhibit the ability to achieve objectives and demonstrate the substantive commitments and logistical capacity of the organization/collective.
- Work plans should comply with the general campaign description and target audience as well as set forth specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and time-bound objectives for achieving impact.
- Campaigns should have a national and/or sub-national focus.
- Campaigns should specify and consider the creation of content designed to reach the target audience in any chosen channel (print, audio, video or digital) and on any platform, such as community radio, TV, websites, mobile phones, social networks, etc.
- Individual applications will not be accepted.
- Campaigns must address a window of opportunity.
- Campaigns must be framed within a window of opportunity (see Frequently Asked Questions for more information).
Stages of the process
- The fund will have the first stage of duration until December 2020. From August 12 to December 10, 2020, applications were received permanently.
- Proposals were be submitted using the form available on this page.
- Pulsante´s team may directly invite organizations and groups that exist at specific junctures in national and/or local contexts to apply. Receiving an invitation to apply does not guarantee the final selection of a project.
- Proposals will be evaluated by Pulsante’s team.
- During the evaluation process, Pulsante may contact the organization applying to clarify questions.
- The Fund will review applications on a monthly basis.
Pulsante’s team and Steering Committee will evaluate proposals based on the concepts and objectives established by the Alliance. All applications to the Rapid Response Fund will be reviewed and approved by Pulsante’s board.
Check here the Frequently Asked Questions
1. What is civic space?
Civic space is created by a universally accepted set of rules, which allow people to organize, participate and communicate with each other freely and without hindrance, and in doing so, influence the political and social structures around them.
2. Can only one organization apply?
This process is intended for coalitions. Individual applications will not be considered.
3. Can the support be renewed?
This support is non-renewable. It is envisaged that proposal’s objective will be tested in a single iteration.
4. Can I apply as a grantee of Pulsante or its member organizations?
Since the fund is designed to support groups in the advancement of a particular situation, this is something that will be evaluated on an individual basis by the committee.
5. How does Pulsante define a campaign?
Pulsante defines a campaign as a set of activities – such as statements, informative and training activities, of awareness-raising and social mobilization, actions aimed at the media – that are integrated in a consistent strategy whose objective is to generate sustainable changes in ideas, values, policies and/or practices that affect those who are most vulnerable and the full exercise of human rights, thereby influencing key decision-makers and placing these issues in the public agenda.
The goal is to design campaigns with specific objectives–through organized citizenry and the establishment of alliances/collectives–to generate social mobilization in search of change, not research.
6. What does Pulsante consider social mobilization?
Social mobilization can manifest as a group of organizations or persons whose objective is to generate political and social change and/or to influence public policy and accountability issues; an organized civil society group that seeks to place issues on the public agenda in response to legislation that violates freedoms and human rights; or even a social movement that reveals the power of a group unified by common values and actions.
7. What does Pulsante mean by relevance and feasibility?
The Rapid Response Fund focuses on promoting rapid, viable and relevant actions in a specific situation that will allow us to advance or avoid the regression of the rights already won by our societies.
8. How do we define window of opportunity?
a) What IS considered a “window of opportunity” in the RRF?
A window of opportunity is understood as an atypical moment connected to the current political, economic and/or social situation of a country that allows for a specific issue to be positioned, advanced or concluded within that limited juncture. This is where the exceptionality of a window of opportunity lies – in the now or never potential to carry out a campaign amid that particular and perhaps unique time.
· Window (a limited period of time) + opportunity (a moment to do or achieve something).
· Limited time (a maximum of six months).
· The issue can only be addressed at this specific time.
b) What is NOT considered a window of opportunity in the RRF?
· An opportunity that can be addressed in various moments with less short-term urgency (six months, a year or more from now, etc.). An example might be a general campaign that has no specific focus, addressing subjects such as literacy, training on human rights, institutionalized social problems, etc.
· An objective that requires more than six months to execute.
· An institutional or generic social change (for example, ending racism, poverty, inequality, gender violence, COVID, etc.).
9. What do we mean by a “coalition or group of organizations”?
A coalition is transitory, does not require registration, is for the defense of common interests and can be formed between different actors.
10. What do we mean by a “collective of organized civil society”?
A group of people or organizations coming together with common interests or to achieve a common goal. Some, but not all, collectives are formally and legally constituted.
Contact
If you have any questions about the Rapid Response Fund, please contact us at info@pulsante.org